Question 1

What is changefreq?

Accepted Answer

The changefreq element is a hint to search engines about how frequently a page's content is likely to change. Valid values include always, hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, and never. However, Google has stated this is primarily a hint and may not heavily influence crawl frequency.

Question 2

Does Google use changefreq?

Accepted Answer

Google has indicated that changefreq is not heavily weighted in their crawling algorithms. While it's still good practice to include accurate changefreq values, Google primarily determines crawl frequency based on actual content changes they detect, page importance, and crawl budget.

Question 3

What priority should I use?

Accepted Answer

Priority values range from 0.0 to 1.0 and indicate the relative importance of URLs on your site. Use 0.5-0.8 for most content pages, and reserve 1.0 for your most important pages (like homepage and key landing pages). Priority is relative to your own site, not across the web.

Question 4

How often should I update lastmod?

Accepted Answer

You should update the lastmod date whenever the content on a page actually changes in a meaningful way. Don't update it for minor changes like timestamp updates or view counts. Accurate lastmod dates help search engines prioritize which pages to recrawl.

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